MEXICO CITY — The father and daughter lie face down in the muddy water along the banks of the Rio Grande, her tiny head tucked inside his T-shirt, an arm draped over his neck.
The portrait of desperation was captured on Monday by the journalist Julia Le Duc, in the hours after Óscar Alberto Martínez Ramírez died with his 23-month-old daughter, Valeria, as they tried to cross from Mexico to the United States.
The image represents a poignant distillation of the perilous journey migrants face on their passage north to the United States, and the tragic consequences that often go unseen in the loud and caustic debate over border policy.
It recalled other powerful and sometimes disturbing photos that have galvanized public attention to the horrors of war and the acute suffering of individual refugees and migrants — personal stories that are often obscured by larger events.
Like the iconic photo of a bleeding Syrian child pulled from the rubble in Aleppo after an airstrike or the 1993 shot of a starving toddler and a nearby vulture in Sudan, the image of a single father and his young child washed up on the Rio Grande’s shore had the potential to prick the public conscience.
As the photo ricocheted around social media on Tuesday, Democrats in the House were moving toward approval of an emergency $4.5 billion humanitarian aid bill to address the plight of migrants at the border.
Representative Joaquin Castro, Democrat of Texas and the chairman of the Hispanic Caucus, grew visibly emotional as he discussed the photograph in Washington. He said he hoped that it would make a difference among lawmakers and the broader American public.
“It’s very hard to see that photograph,” Mr. Castro said. “It’s our version of the Syrian photograph — of the 3-year-old boy on the beach, dead. That’s what it is.’’
The young family from El Salvador — Mr. Martínez, 25, Valeria and her mother, Tania Vanessa Ávalos — arrived last weekend in the border city of Matamoros, Mexico, hoping to apply for asylum in the United States.
But the international bridge was closed until Monday, officials told them, and as they walked along the banks of the river, the water appeared manageable.
The family set off together around mid-afternoon on Sunday. Mr. Martínez swam with Valeria on his back, tucked under his shirt. Ms. Ávalos followed behind, on the back of a family friend, she told government officials.
But as Mr. Martínez approached the opposite bank, carrying Valeria, Ms. Ávalos could see he was tiring in the rough water. She decided to swim back to the Mexican bank.
Back on the Mexico side, she turned and saw her husband and daughter, close to the American bank, sink into the river and get swept away.
On Monday, their bodies were recovered by Mexican authorities a few hundred yards from where they were swept downstream, fixed in the same haunting embrace.
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